While writing this article I realized I am way more upset at BART than I knew so I’ll start there.
As someone who rides BART every day Monday through Friday I must say I am getting very fed up with the system.
BART is overpriced!
For one, it’s way over priced. To go from 12th ST BART City Center Oakland to Civic Center BART in San Francisco and back it is costing me $6.30 a day. That’s $31.50 a week or $126 a month!
If I’m going to pay that much I expect seats I can at least sit on, trains that are going to be on time and a ride to work that doesn’t require me being trapped under the Transbay Tube for up to 30 minutes at a time.
BART is dirty!
About that, the trains are disgusting. I would never sit on those seats because I see some of the dirtiest people on earth sitting on them. I have even seen a guy piss and or shit himself on the seat, get up, leave a wet spot and someone else a few stops later unknowingly sit in that seat. You just have no idea who was there before you. If you’re wondering why I didn’t say anything it’s because I wasn’t near enough and there were about 10 people in the vicinity that could have said something. Oh well, just watch your BART seats!
This study here shows that incurable bacterias have been found on the seats!
Sure one can say BART is trying to replace the seats with the new vinyl like material for easier cleaning. But how often are those even cleaned?
BART is overcrowded!
I couldn’t sit if I wanted to anyways. My trains are so crowded in the morning that it is shoulder to shoulder standing room only. These trains are so over packed it’s ridiculous and uncomfortable. People smell, sick people spreading SARS everywhere and of course the jerk or two who snuck their bike on the car and took up 4 or 5 spaces worth of standing room.
Don’t get me wrong, I wish I could bring my bike on BART but until BART accommodates to us and makes a bike only car in back it is rude for just YOU to break the rules while I suffer.
BART hates bikes!
BART can easily fix this. If they gutted the last car of every train so that it was seatless and just had a bunch of bike hooks, racks, nothing, whatever, we could all ride our bikes to BART and to the office. But now a lot of us are forced to take buses and leave our metal horses at home. Get on it BART. Simple fix.
BART delay, every day?
So now here we are shoulder to shoulder from the East Bay to SF after leaving our bike at home and over paying for a ride, the train stops in the Transbay Tube! Almost every morning it seems and sometimes it’s only 5 to 10 minutes while other times it’s up to a half hour.
It’s like there is always a “medical emergency” at Embarcadero, an “equipment failure” or “a few trains ahead of us”. Most of the time you don’t even know why you’re stopped because you can’t hear a word of what the conductor is saying over busted speakers or they are too loud and distorted or they just don’t say anything at all.
You keep cramping me under water there talking about medical emergencies and I’m gonna have a panic attack and you’ll be dealing with me next! Not really. But come on get it together.
I hear you have medics on stand by at Embarcadero or at least I read this. Somehow this has to be more efficient.
Maybe they should be down on the platform waiting and you can get said person off the train in a matter of seconds and keep trains running on schedule. I don’t know why this always takes so long.
BART is behind the times!
I understand another thing is boarding time. And I hear we’re lucky enough to get new 3 door cars in 5 years for a faster more efficient boarding procedure but come on. Why did that take so long and why do we still have to wait this long? It seems like this would speed things up a little but also something you shouldn’t have slept on.
You say your budget is so slim but with the amount of money you are charging 370,000 weekday passengers I can’t imagine how there would be a budget problem. Where is this money going? How much do you pay that guy that says please stand clear of the doors?
BART is a homeless shelter?
Exiting BART, the relief of not being crowded and stuck underground. That moment when you know it is no longer possible to die in an earthquake under the Bay. What could ruin that feeling of freedom?
I’ll tell you what! I get off at Civic Center and I have to deal with the accordion playing dog guy(who’s not that bad), the whining cowboy with his terrible voice(WHY?) and then a homeless encampment. Every morning! The foul stench off piss and crap all down the hall in the BART station.
The escalators are almost always out of service because you let these guys live down there and they urinate and poop in them! I am constantly stepping over streams of pee.
You recently removed the garbage can which is good because I have seen people pissing on it many times.
Maybe if you didn’t shut down all the bathrooms underground this wouldn’t be as bad.
You know me, the paying commuter has to use the bathroom too! I know you say it’s to prevent terrorism but what terrorist needs a bathroom to blow themselves up? You’re ridiculous.
So what else are you going to do to stop this? Why do you let these people sleep in there, beg me for money every single morning and use the bathroom on the floor of my public transportation system that I pay so much for?
Do I even like BART?
Ok, so you know why I hate BART and now I’m just frustrated because I’ll be walking down into Civic Center soon to go back to Oakland. I can’t even think of reasons I like it anymore other than it gets me from A to B.
The system is so old and out of date that you can’t even run trains 24 hours on weekends. What good is BART from SF to Oakland if I have to run to a station at midnight like Cinderella?
p.s.
TURN OF THE DAMN HEATER! It’s 80 degrees out and this car is hot and stanky!
Facts about BART:
104 total miles of track expanding 4 counties.
44 stations total with 16 on the surface at ground level, 13 elevated above the ground and 15 underground subway stations.
669 BART cars total running at a max of 80mph and an average of 33mph.
300 ticket machines, 579 entry fare gates, and 168 add fare machines inside of stations.
As of January 2013 BART has over 370,000 weekday passengers.
Construction began June 19th, 1964.
The Transbay Tube is 135 feet beneath the surface at it’s deepest point.
Source
